Once again, the spotlight shown on WNBA talent on the court is being shifted towards the topic of the Caitlin Clark-Indiana Fever fandom spewing racist and misogynistic vitriol toward players off the court.
Connecticut Sun’s Most Improved Player DiJonai Carrington is the latest player to reveal an ugly message from the Fever fanbase. Carrington, who helped her team eliminate the Fever from postseason contention Wednesday, posted to Instagram a racist email from a fan. Its subject line read “Worthless n—-r b—h;” while the message read “I hope someone rapes you and cuts your head off.”
Carrington revealed the message after Sunday’s Game 1 home win over the Indiana Fever. It’s one of many nasty messages sent during the 2024 WNBA season, which experienced a rise in hateful, racist, misogynistic and homophobic comments directed at players coinciding with the rising popularity of the league.
In that game, the Sun guard accidentally hit Clark in the eye while making a play on the ball. Clark, to whom racist fans have attached themselves since her arrival to the league, later said the poke “wasn’t intentional by any means.”
The situation took a turn on Wednesday after a USA Today reporter “attempted to bait” Carrington “into participating in a narrative that is false and designed to fuel racist, homophobic, and misogynistic vitriol on social media,” WNBPA executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson said in a statement Friday.
I asked DiJonai Carrington about that moment early in Sunday’s Indiana-Connecticut game when she caught Caitlin Clark in the eye. Here’s her answer: pic.twitter.com/DnQVYi0r6J
— Christine Brennan (@cbrennansports) September 24, 2024
In a media availability, the reporter, Christine Brennan, asked Carrington if she intended to hit Clark.
“When you kinda swatted at Caitlin, did you intend to hit her in the eye,” Brennan asked then added “and if so or not either way, could you talk about what happened on that play?”
Carrington said she didn’t intend to hit anyone and wasn’t aware she struck Clark at the time.
“That doesn’t even make sense to me,” Carrington said.
Brennan then followed up and asked: “Did you and [teammate] Marina [Mabrey] laugh about it afterwards? It looked like later on in the game they caught you guys laughing about it.”
“No,” Carrington responded. “I just told you I didn’t even know I hit her. I can’t laugh about something I didn’t even know happened.”
The exchange went viral online, causing a response from Knicks forward Josh Hart calling for journalists to lose their credentials for asking “stupid questions like this.”
Several WNBA players weighed in and the WNBPA released a fiery response Friday on the matter. In the passionate, straight-forward statement, the player’s association called for Brennan’s credentials.
“Instead of demonstrating the cornerstones of journalism ethics like integrity, objectivity, and a fundamental commitment to truth, you have chosen to be indecent and downright insincere,” Jackson said in the fiery statement.
“You have abused your privileges and do not deserve the credentials issued to you. And you certainly are not entitled to any interviews with the members of this union or any other athlete in sport.”
5/5 pic.twitter.com/GrAb7k3bia
— WNBPA (@TheWNBPA) September 27, 2024
USA Today later issued a response Friday that said “We reject the notion that the interview perpetuated any narrative other than to get the player’s perspective directly.”
USA Today had not responded to the Daily News’ request for comment at the time of publication.
Statement in response to WNBPA: pic.twitter.com/dyMxGrndXe
— USA TODAY Sports (@usatodaysports) September 27, 2024
Even before Clark’s arrival to the WNBA, her fans — during Clark’s NCAA career at Iowa — bullied collegiate players that featured in matchups against the star. Current Chicago Sky star Angel Reese received racist messages during her time at LSU, specifically after defeating Clark and the Hawkeyes during the NCAA Women’s Final Four championship game in 2023. Reese’s famous ring finger taunt cued fans to send hateful messages.
ANGEL REESE TO CAITLIN CLARK 😳 pic.twitter.com/2NY0CEzwJ3
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 2, 2023
The hateful messages came not just from faceless, no-name accounts, but also public figures such as Barstool Sports founder David Portnoy. Portnoy called Reese a “classless piece of sh-t” in response to Reese’s ring finger taunt towards Clark back in 2023. The post wasn’t edited and stayed online since.
That kind of hate from Clark supporters translated from the NCAA to the WNBA. And since her arrival to the WNBA, many fans online have deemed the star — who is white — the face of the league. It’s high praise for a phenomenal rookie, but it also belittles the work done by other superstars — mostly Black — in the league for decades.
Carrington’s latest post comes after numerous complaints from players receiving more racist, misogynistic messages coinciding with the rising popularity of the WNBA. Sun star Alyssa Thomas singled out the Fever fanbase’s rising vitriol.
“Honestly, it’s been a lot of nonsense,” Thomas told reporters. “I think in my 11-year career I’ve never experienced the racial comments from the Indiana Fever fanbase [ever].”
“It’s a tough situation. Mainly what I’ve seen about Dijonai kind of getting a lot of sh-t,” Liberty star Breanna Stewart, who is part of the WNBAPA’s executive committee, said during Friday’s practice at Barclays Center. “And I feel for her because she’s going out and she’s competing every single night, and that’s what we ask of all 144 players in this league. And we want the league to continue to have our back. What can you do about the trolls? I don’t know but when it gets to the point of hate and threats, then yeah there’s security that can look into that.
“For the message itself from all the players, all teams, no matter what if we’re going against each other on the court, there’s not a space for that in this sport and really in any sport. We’re talking about people’s lives here. We’re asking all of these women to compete and that’s what they’re doing. [Commissioner] Cathy [Engelbert], the league, the [players’ association], all the players, need to make sure we send the message that it’s unacceptable. We don’t want that type of fan in our league.”
On Friday, Stewart said she and her wife, former WNBA and Euroleague player Marta Xargay, have received hateful messages.
Clark’s star teammate, Aliyah Boston, said earlier in the season during a rough playing stretch she received abuse on social media, much of which came from fans of Clark and featured racial undertones. At the time, it led to Boston deleting social media app X from her phone.
After months of complaints, the league failed to release an official statement denouncing the vitriol until Wednesday when the league posted a statement on its social media account following the elimination of the Indiana Fever.
— WNBA (@WNBA) September 26, 2024
For Sabrina Ionescu, the statement came too late.
“I think the league should’ve taken a stance on this a long time ago when this happened and not waited for it to get this deep and this far on what’s tolerated and what’s not,” Ionescu said Friday.
“Racist remarks, things that been happening that I’ve heard about, there should be a zero tolerance policy and it shouldn’t take for us to get into the playoffs on this platform to speak on it. That should’ve been something that was addressed from the beginning by the commissioner and done so every single time that that’s happened. Hopefully the right steps are going to be taken moving forward because as the league grows, we want our fanbase to grow as well in a safe space and have players feel like they can come to work not worried about what’s happening on the internet.
“And obviously some of the things you can’t control because that is what the internet is. But I think it needs to be kind of nipped in the bud and not tolerated, because we can’t just let some go and some not. There needs to be an end to any type of racism.”
